


immeasurable

by verulam (krynon)



Category: The Matrix (Movies)
Genre: Creation, Gen, Neo and Smith are one entity, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 04:47:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18564214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krynon/pseuds/verulam
Summary: Neo- or not Neo now, not Neo at all. He creates, that's the point. What else can he do?





	immeasurable

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2014, so please excuse any faults or errors. I was having some feelings and thought it would be good to post.

 

It becomes as simple as breathing.

The days roll together, and he creates, and very soon the nights are one and the same too, floating on viscous oil and yet-another-creation.

 

The machines are gracious. They know only war and human pain, and Neo seems to know an awful lot of both with a great deal of humility (the machines aren't so good at humility). The contradiction guarantees peace and probably will for many months to come. The mainframe is kinder the more time he spends inside the code itself- less adverse, less bitter, less alive- so he does not attempt to return to the real world more than once.

 

Morpheus is amongst the first to re-escape, but only because Neo cheated. Returning memories was not a part of the deal- but he does it anyway, steadily drips in ideas and the-right-people. Morpheus replaces the first escapee, and Neo feels like this world will be better for it.

 

He had been creating since 0400 hours Post-Peace. All of the Eurasian Continent is new, molecule by molecule on a base of magma-lava-movement that was as earthen as anything Neo can remember.

He raised the Americas- and then-

They drop back into the sea and wait a little longer.

(The _bodies_. He hadn't quite- they- a pyrrhic victory confined to where he remembered it, because there was _no_ escape from his own choices-)

 

Morpheus looks at him with big sad eyes that don't seem to fit on his face- but it's just a reflection in his sunglasses. He curses himself gently at the mistake- Neo is aware that he did not put his eyes back quite right, but his head is so full of code it was difficult to care, in the mainframe- Now he's stood in front of his old friend, it is still strangely unimportant to restore his actual eyes- the one's he's using now, made of red light and corrugated iron, work just fine.

 

“You're not quite The One anymore, are you, Neo?”

 

They stand in the middle of a busy street- in Paris, or London, or Bruges. The only place it cannot be is the continent of the final battle (it is not yet resurrected, left to drown just-a-little-longer).

People mill around them, a caught bubble in the sea of people, clasped hands of a city wrapped tight around the street.

 

“Hello, Morpheus.” It feels too simple.

 

A tingle of electricity tells him there is something more to say, and usually it would prompt an idea, but- Neo's humanity is suffering a little, with the code in his arms and legs and sinews. There's not much imagination left to prompt.

 

“Hello, ah- What should I call you?” Morpheus talks like there's a bit in his mouth and blinkers on his eyes, as if a beast crouches behind him with whips, spreading hot coals on the steps in front of him.

 

He almost says “Thomas. A. Anderson”, but the only reason Neo finds it funny is the endless exposure to humourless beings. He remembers enough to recall that the joke is not actually funny, at the very least.

 

(The Machine's call him The Singularity now, Smith's code embedded in his own.)

 

But really, he's just- he's just a Programmer, very little existence left in him. He's hardly a human, machine-eyes and all, and he's hardly a Program- he's far too alive. So he answers Morpheus honestly.

 

“I don't know.”

 

A flinch shudders through Morpheus then, starting at his feet and trembling up in great waves. A silence falls in their bubble, but it's hardly that- This world of Neo's is above all else loud. The old one had been so quiet he'd taken to whispering, and whilst he is stuck in his ways even outside the Matrix, he can at least gift people with the deafening tone of life.

 

“You- is there another One? Are you the last?”

 

“For now.”

 

There's a nervous energy crackling at the edges of it. At the edges of everything- his own fault, Neo knows. Everything he does is everything that _is_ , now. Storm clouds smudge the sun.

Morpheus leans on his hips and stares away, at the movement of the fluid crowd.

 

“Did you make this?”

 

“Make what?”

 

Clarification. Since- since The Reboot, Neo needs clarification like it's air. He feels, very briefly, like this new world he's made is a little too mechanical for his liking.

Morpheus tips his glasses down to look him in the eyes, the rest of his body facing pointedly away. “The world?”

 

“Yes. That was me.”

 

“And the people?”

 

“As few as I could.” It's not a lie. He's not good at those; as many salvageable souls left in back-ups and temporary files as he could find were sent back to live.

 

“And... the free?”

 

“I had to... remake them.” A word he hates. It sounds too much like Smith. A part of him cackles at the revulsion of the word, but there is no real substitute. He saw them in the new world, and recreated their old selves.

It will cause no end of problems when they escape the Matrix a second time, exposed to themselves, older and wiser and more damaged, but there is no alternative. People must escape, and they must find freedom.

Morpheus had been a special case. His instrumentality to the plan- Neo had lifted Morpheus back into the Matrix directly, no recreation at all. The same soul, the same memories- Neo does not envy him.      

 

“And Smith?”

“Gone.” He can't quite hide the bitterness.

 

“Trinity?”

 

“...Gone,” There is no hiding the shame and grief there.

 

Smith could be brought back, but he wouldn't dare try to reconnect the sinews of her code. He'd do it wrong, never do her justice.

 

Morpheus is silent and drips sadness in desperate pitter-patters from his code.

 

The whole thing feels like ash on his not-quite tongue. It slips, crumbling, through his fingers.

 

He looks at Morpheus. He has big sad eyes that don’t seem to fit on his face.

 

That feels important, somehow. But these days, most things did: everything he did _was_ important.

 

Morpheus’ big sad eyes don’t fit on his face. The code jars and splits, rifts upon rifts where there should be smooth lines.

 

Neither of them say anything.

 

 And there’s nothing he can do about it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks for reading! Please leave a comment and let me know what you think- even four years later, i really like this style of writing and I'm proud of it.


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